FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Discuss
- Thread starter Aragorn
- Start date
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
This show works best when the pace is fast and they focus on the conspiracy. None of this Lloyd/Olivia nonsense and other character storylines that have nothing to do with the plot. Also, does it feel like five months have passed since the blackout? All this should be taking place over like a couple weeks.
This show works best when the pace is fast and they focus on the conspiracy. None of this Lloyd/Olivia nonsense and other character storylines that have nothing to do with the plot. Also, does it feel like five months have passed since the blackout? All this should be taking place over like a couple weeks.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
What a completely contrived episode on the scale of Lost. Essentially, if everyone just did as they were told, nothing bad would have happened. Lovely.
I guess I'm supposed to wonder "why not kill Mark"? But given that I'm sure this show is dead this year, I just don't care. Hell, I bet they end on a cliffhanger that will never get resolved, because that's just how these shows seem to operate nowadays.
What a completely contrived episode on the scale of Lost. Essentially, if everyone just did as they were told, nothing bad would have happened. Lovely.
I guess I'm supposed to wonder "why not kill Mark"? But given that I'm sure this show is dead this year, I just don't care. Hell, I bet they end on a cliffhanger that will never get resolved, because that's just how these shows seem to operate nowadays.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Well, it certainly can't get much better. I thought his accent was surprisingly convincing.
Well, it certainly can't get much better. I thought his accent was surprisingly convincing.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
With FlashForward, a scientist really doesn't have that credibility. Frost may have died in 78% of the ff's he experienced, but that is not the same as saying there's a 78% probability that he will die, because we have know way of knowing whether his ff's are representative of the underlying probabilities of things occuring, or What the Cosmos Wants, and there's no way he, a mere mortal, can know that either.
So we're left with this story: a bunch of people are making predictions that their future will go this way or that, based on their future decisions. The universe may or may not be influencing things. If it is, and to what degree, is a mystery because everyone in the story is a mere mortal and can't know things like that.
There's no sci fi in this story. Everyone's life is the same as these's people's: we all make predictions that our future will go this way or that, based on our future decisions. We may even visualize these futures that we hope will come to pass or are trying to avoid. So what's the point of having ff's at all?
The sci fi is mere window dressing, a bunch of scientists blathering about quantum particles and chronotron reflux syndrome or whatever. It doesn't add up to an interesting story, except on the most superficial, beat-the-ticking-clock level.
And speaking of that, the one thing I liked about this ep was that they finally found a way to use two ridiculous action show cliches in a sensible manner: the oddly visible "infrared" target dot and the LED countdown clock. Both were intended simply to terrorize Demitri rather than their usual purpose of showing how considerate the bad guys are to give the heads' up to their victims.
They are doing the same thing as Lost - there's some combo of free will and fate going on - but Lost gets away with it because it has introduced characters who can speak for fate. They have some vague supernatural quality (maybe they're even dieties?) and if they blather about destiny and fate, we can accept that they are qualified to make those pronouncements.
With FlashForward, a scientist really doesn't have that credibility. Frost may have died in 78% of the ff's he experienced, but that is not the same as saying there's a 78% probability that he will die, because we have know way of knowing whether his ff's are representative of the underlying probabilities of things occuring, or What the Cosmos Wants, and there's no way he, a mere mortal, can know that either.
So we're left with this story: a bunch of people are making predictions that their future will go this way or that, based on their future decisions. The universe may or may not be influencing things. If it is, and to what degree, is a mystery because everyone in the story is a mere mortal and can't know things like that.
There's no sci fi in this story. Everyone's life is the same as these's people's: we all make predictions that our future will go this way or that, based on our future decisions. We may even visualize these futures that we hope will come to pass or are trying to avoid. So what's the point of having ff's at all?
The sci fi is mere window dressing, a bunch of scientists blathering about quantum particles and chronotron reflux syndrome or whatever. It doesn't add up to an interesting story, except on the most superficial, beat-the-ticking-clock level.
And speaking of that, the one thing I liked about this ep was that they finally found a way to use two ridiculous action show cliches in a sensible manner: the oddly visible "infrared" target dot and the LED countdown clock. Both were intended simply to terrorize Demitri rather than their usual purpose of showing how considerate the bad guys are to give the heads' up to their victims.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Hah, yeah, putting a giant clock on the device actually served some kind of purpose.
I suppose if there's some SF moralizing to be had here, it would be that knowing the future isn't as good as some people might think it is (and maybe that was what the book was about), but the execution here is just laughable.
But it's true. The show would be exactly the same if the FBI intercepted a message about a terrorist attack from a cellphone, just like they constantly do on 24, and could proceed in exactly the same way. Someone could have found a message on a computer that said "Kill Dmitri on March 15" and that would have been enough.
Oh well.
Hah, yeah, putting a giant clock on the device actually served some kind of purpose.
I suppose if there's some SF moralizing to be had here, it would be that knowing the future isn't as good as some people might think it is (and maybe that was what the book was about), but the execution here is just laughable.
But it's true. The show would be exactly the same if the FBI intercepted a message about a terrorist attack from a cellphone, just like they constantly do on 24, and could proceed in exactly the same way. Someone could have found a message on a computer that said "Kill Dmitri on March 15" and that would have been enough.
Oh well.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
The shameless use of plot holes in pursuit of sensationalism continues. Boring cliche terrorist manages to set up a series of rescue attempt how exactly? And wouldn't it be easier just to use one of the goons who busted into the courthouse to kill Frost, instead of somehow transporting Peroxide Death to the middle of nowhere? And I'm with Benford, there was no way he was followed on those back roads without his knowing it. It took an electronic tracer or a helicopter.
It is notable that the episode, though no one chose to note it, set up a possible multiyear arc, with the stakes apparently being the end of everything.
As to the metaphysics, the flashforwards in the novel gave information about the future despite not being the future. This premise is in the series. But, physically speaking, in quantum mechanics there is no way to distinguish future from past. Time is reversible. If the future is in flux, the past is in flux. Nonetheless, the book and the series both assume a privileged now when a character can change the future (although not the past,) ignoring the question of how information from the Mark Benford in the flashforward could change his past, but the Mark Benford in the past couldn't change his. The magic now is the time stamp on the episode. What the viewer has seen in narrative time is the unchangeable past.
The QED apparently keeps the wearer from seeing the flashforward. Since the point of the Raven River experiments apparently was to get information by seeing the probable futures, the point of the QED remains obscure.
Frost's assertion that the flashforwards show a probable future fits everything shown. This is scifi, by the way. People in ordinary life do not make decisions now based on partial information from a probable future. The notion that the flashforward itself gives that future a greater "weight" seems to be a loosey-goosey reference to quantum entanglement. The show is remarkably uninterested in rationalizing the mechanics of the flashforwards, especially the physical nature of the blackouts and the transmission of future sensations to the otherwise unconscious bodies. This proud disinterest in how may avoid big words, but still leaves major credibility gaps.
This episode was particularly well executed in other ways though. The domino image, the forking paths diagram (though I looked around for Kurtwood Smith
) the suspense because of uncertainty about Janis's role gave a certain amount of tension.
Like the book, the series announced early on that the role of the future visions was problematic, just in the name of avoiding unpleasant thoughts about free will. Whether that is a turn off for people I don't know. My thought is that the flawed hero, Benford, was the biggest problem for others. All his flaws have been disappeared and now he really is uninteresting to me.
On a side note, the idea that Lost is getting away with its haphazard combination of free will and fate by dragging in the supernatural strikes me as inadvertently funny. The Big Story on Lost is a disaster.
The shameless use of plot holes in pursuit of sensationalism continues. Boring cliche terrorist manages to set up a series of rescue attempt how exactly? And wouldn't it be easier just to use one of the goons who busted into the courthouse to kill Frost, instead of somehow transporting Peroxide Death to the middle of nowhere? And I'm with Benford, there was no way he was followed on those back roads without his knowing it. It took an electronic tracer or a helicopter.
It is notable that the episode, though no one chose to note it, set up a possible multiyear arc, with the stakes apparently being the end of everything.
As to the metaphysics, the flashforwards in the novel gave information about the future despite not being the future. This premise is in the series. But, physically speaking, in quantum mechanics there is no way to distinguish future from past. Time is reversible. If the future is in flux, the past is in flux. Nonetheless, the book and the series both assume a privileged now when a character can change the future (although not the past,) ignoring the question of how information from the Mark Benford in the flashforward could change his past, but the Mark Benford in the past couldn't change his. The magic now is the time stamp on the episode. What the viewer has seen in narrative time is the unchangeable past.
The QED apparently keeps the wearer from seeing the flashforward. Since the point of the Raven River experiments apparently was to get information by seeing the probable futures, the point of the QED remains obscure.
Frost's assertion that the flashforwards show a probable future fits everything shown. This is scifi, by the way. People in ordinary life do not make decisions now based on partial information from a probable future. The notion that the flashforward itself gives that future a greater "weight" seems to be a loosey-goosey reference to quantum entanglement. The show is remarkably uninterested in rationalizing the mechanics of the flashforwards, especially the physical nature of the blackouts and the transmission of future sensations to the otherwise unconscious bodies. This proud disinterest in how may avoid big words, but still leaves major credibility gaps.
This episode was particularly well executed in other ways though. The domino image, the forking paths diagram (though I looked around for Kurtwood Smith
) the suspense because of uncertainty about Janis's role gave a certain amount of tension. Like the book, the series announced early on that the role of the future visions was problematic, just in the name of avoiding unpleasant thoughts about free will. Whether that is a turn off for people I don't know. My thought is that the flawed hero, Benford, was the biggest problem for others. All his flaws have been disappeared and now he really is uninteresting to me.
On a side note, the idea that Lost is getting away with its haphazard combination of free will and fate by dragging in the supernatural strikes me as inadvertently funny. The Big Story on Lost is a disaster.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Lost gets away with doing whatever they want chiefly because they make sure that the story makes emotional sense. They've given themselves so much latitude in story logic that literally anything is possible, so worrying about plot logic is futile. I'm sure this saves the writers a lot of effort in making sure things make sense. As long as the story feels right, they can write whatever nonsense they please.
Just compare the ratings for proof that Lost has gotten away with their sleight of hand - it rode right through to its final season without ever dipping into cancellation territory. If there was another season possible, they'd get a renewal.
Flashforward is just the latest in a long line of failed attempts to imitiate Lost's success. The moral of the story is that appeal to the audience's emotions, not their brains, is the key to success. The funny thing is - we already knew that about TV.
Lost gets away with doing whatever they want chiefly because they make sure that the story makes emotional sense. They've given themselves so much latitude in story logic that literally anything is possible, so worrying about plot logic is futile. I'm sure this saves the writers a lot of effort in making sure things make sense. As long as the story feels right, they can write whatever nonsense they please.
Just compare the ratings for proof that Lost has gotten away with their sleight of hand - it rode right through to its final season without ever dipping into cancellation territory. If there was another season possible, they'd get a renewal.
Flashforward is just the latest in a long line of failed attempts to imitiate Lost's success. The moral of the story is that appeal to the audience's emotions, not their brains, is the key to success. The funny thing is - we already knew that about TV.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Lost has long had a very shaky grasp on my emotions. Sawyer has been a joke for years (a classic instance of "jumping the shark" in the sense of going so over the top to make a character cool you make him ridiculous instead. When Sawyer did surgery on himself, with his fingers
did it for me.) The problem is that Lost is about 90% Sawyer/weepy girl (whose very name I'm blanking on!)/Jack.
Locke died and I didn't give a shit. And I'm not sure that anyone else does either. So I'm not at all sure that emotional truth has a damn thing to do with Lost's survival. That may be merely because once a show becomes a habit, lots of people don't quit.
The last time I felt thrilled or happy or sad watching Lost was, what? Penny reunited with Desmond? Oh, they've undone that.
Wait, forgot one, when Ellie killed Faraday. The appeal of Lost is that it is genuinely inventive, something very few television shows are. But that's not an emotional appeal. Now that Lost is winding down the Big Story, I've lost so much interest I can't force myself to bother watching hours and hours of the wrapup.
Lost has long had a very shaky grasp on my emotions. Sawyer has been a joke for years (a classic instance of "jumping the shark" in the sense of going so over the top to make a character cool you make him ridiculous instead. When Sawyer did surgery on himself, with his fingers
did it for me.) The problem is that Lost is about 90% Sawyer/weepy girl (whose very name I'm blanking on!)/Jack. Locke died and I didn't give a shit. And I'm not sure that anyone else does either. So I'm not at all sure that emotional truth has a damn thing to do with Lost's survival. That may be merely because once a show becomes a habit, lots of people don't quit.
The last time I felt thrilled or happy or sad watching Lost was, what? Penny reunited with Desmond? Oh, they've undone that.
Wait, forgot one, when Ellie killed Faraday. The appeal of Lost is that it is genuinely inventive, something very few television shows are. But that's not an emotional appeal. Now that Lost is winding down the Big Story, I've lost so much interest I can't force myself to bother watching hours and hours of the wrapup.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
In the context of what was set-up, particularly in this episode, the conspirators whom Frost was going to betray have other, less tangible means of acquiring information--their ability to generate localized flashforwards. They could have found out where Frost was going to be that way (perhaps in the same report that mentioned where Demetri's body was found). I agree that the assassin getting from the courthouse to the desert in so little time strains credibility, as does the fact that apparently no one else would work for this assignment other than someone who had just explosively escaped custody.
The point of the QED is to prevent the wearer from blacking out during more widespread phenomena. Understandably, if you are engineering a global catastrophe, you want to make sure you'll not wind up being victim to it as well. Since they can generate flashforwards at the local scale, the point of the global blackout was not information-gathering. (What the point of announcing their predictive abilities to the whole world in a fashion guaranteed to bring down incredible heat from law enforcement and associated agencies actually was, now that remains obscure.)
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
In the context of what was set-up, particularly in this episode, the conspirators whom Frost was going to betray have other, less tangible means of acquiring information--their ability to generate localized flashforwards. They could have found out where Frost was going to be that way (perhaps in the same report that mentioned where Demetri's body was found). I agree that the assassin getting from the courthouse to the desert in so little time strains credibility, as does the fact that apparently no one else would work for this assignment other than someone who had just explosively escaped custody.
The point of the QED is to prevent the wearer from blacking out during more widespread phenomena. Understandably, if you are engineering a global catastrophe, you want to make sure you'll not wind up being victim to it as well. Since they can generate flashforwards at the local scale, the point of the global blackout was not information-gathering. (What the point of announcing their predictive abilities to the whole world in a fashion guaranteed to bring down incredible heat from law enforcement and associated agencies actually was, now that remains obscure.)
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
^^^Correct about the point of the QED. Indeed, it is the purpose of a global blackout that remains obscure. I suppose we in the audience are supposed to think they're like the Joker at this point, that's just what some people do.
^^^Correct about the point of the QED. Indeed, it is the purpose of a global blackout that remains obscure. I suppose we in the audience are supposed to think they're like the Joker at this point, that's just what some people do.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
I like this show, but I agree that it would've made much more sense if the Blackout was meant to be a small event but Simcoe and Simon's experiment accidentally augmented it to worldwide status instead of an intentionally planned catastrophe.
I like this show, but I agree that it would've made much more sense if the Blackout was meant to be a small event but Simcoe and Simon's experiment accidentally augmented it to worldwide status instead of an intentionally planned catastrophe.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Inventiveness is okay - it's fun being surprised by crazy plot twists - but really, that stuff is just gimmicky and hollow. For a good story, you've got to have more than gimmicks.
To get back to the point: where FlashForward, V, et al fall down is their inability to get enough people to care about the characters. When you stop caring about the characters, you start thinking about the plot holes. Any story can be picked apart on that basis. The clever writers don't give you an incentive.
I'd have preferred that too, mainly because it avoids the necessity of a bwahaha GLOBAL CONSPIRACY!!! angle, which is a trope that has really worn out its welcome, unless the show has some new angle on it, which this show doesn't.
For the majority of people who are still bothering to watch, I'd bet they do so because the show has grabbed them emotionally. And that's intentional: Cuse and Lindelof claim their story is at essence a love story.
Inventiveness is okay - it's fun being surprised by crazy plot twists - but really, that stuff is just gimmicky and hollow. For a good story, you've got to have more than gimmicks.
To get back to the point: where FlashForward, V, et al fall down is their inability to get enough people to care about the characters. When you stop caring about the characters, you start thinking about the plot holes. Any story can be picked apart on that basis. The clever writers don't give you an incentive.
I'd have preferred that too, mainly because it avoids the necessity of a bwahaha GLOBAL CONSPIRACY!!! angle, which is a trope that has really worn out its welcome, unless the show has some new angle on it, which this show doesn't.
Re: FlashForward: "The Garden of Forking Paths" 4/22/10 - Grade & Disc
Average.
Okay I'm done with FF. It showed some glimmer over the last few weeks--enough to make me want to give it another go but this episode drove home the fact that these writers are not able to deliver a satisfying payoff to their ongoing threads. The season long Dmetri subplot was just so anti-climatic and underwhelming. I mean that was it?!?
And the whole plot with Mark being led around by Dyson only to have Dyson killed by the weakest player of the season--Zoey just seemed a ploy by the writers rather than feeling like an act organic to the story. The only thing the series had going was the plot/mythology and it has become clear they simply don't have the skill to pull off the kind of twists, surprises, resolutions that the series they want to emulate does--that being LOST.
The series also had a bad habit of using the arc as a tenuous link and background in a lot of episodes so they could essentially do a run of the mill immigration, hospital, cop etc story and it just wasn't interesting enough.
So now I can add FF to the list of failed LOST wannabes. So far the only series that has managed to do LOST besides LOST was season one of Heroes. I don't feel bad ditching the series there are only a few episodes left and I highly doubt it is coming back so there is no use watching more lame payoffs.
There are just too many characters and threads plus the writers having to be careful in what they show to us that is dramatized onscreen that a lot of stuff the viewer must fill in.
The series is so densely plotted you could never hope to give the depth to any given thread the way you would on a series with a more modest ensemble and only two or three threads followed and developed over the course of a season. The characters are likeable enough and that is all they need since the majority of the time they are simply a means to facilitate the divulging of exposition or providing the appropriate reactions. Most of the time the depth is left up to the viewer who has to imagine how a character would react or feel because it occurs offscreen or is glossed over because of the urgency to jump to the next subplot. Also the frenzied pacing just doesn't give that time or afford the build up.
Average.
Okay I'm done with FF. It showed some glimmer over the last few weeks--enough to make me want to give it another go but this episode drove home the fact that these writers are not able to deliver a satisfying payoff to their ongoing threads. The season long Dmetri subplot was just so anti-climatic and underwhelming. I mean that was it?!?
And the whole plot with Mark being led around by Dyson only to have Dyson killed by the weakest player of the season--Zoey just seemed a ploy by the writers rather than feeling like an act organic to the story. The only thing the series had going was the plot/mythology and it has become clear they simply don't have the skill to pull off the kind of twists, surprises, resolutions that the series they want to emulate does--that being LOST.
The series also had a bad habit of using the arc as a tenuous link and background in a lot of episodes so they could essentially do a run of the mill immigration, hospital, cop etc story and it just wasn't interesting enough.
So now I can add FF to the list of failed LOST wannabes. So far the only series that has managed to do LOST besides LOST was season one of Heroes. I don't feel bad ditching the series there are only a few episodes left and I highly doubt it is coming back so there is no use watching more lame payoffs.
Actually LOST is mostly about the various mysteries of the island. LOST is mostly a plot-centric series whose greatest appeal are the revelations, mysteries, twists, cliffhangers, structure. Sure there is some effort to focus on character but at the end of the day that isn't what people are speculating about or on pins and needles to learn about. What has kept their interest is learning who are the Others, what is the smoke monster, will they get off the island, Who is Jacob, Who is Ben Linus etc etc And you know what that is fine by me since LOST made that clear up front. It isn't all about the little pieces but the Big Picture. Everything that is done on LOST is all about furthering that Whole. Deaths are a means to an end--not played for emotional resonance, for instance. They don't see so and so's death as a Big Event in the way a traditional drama would where its fallout would be remarked on by characters and given much more screentime to==akin to a long drawn out sendoff. Here it is just dropped in your lap and the writers hurriedly move on to the next thread that they must start advancing next.
There are just too many characters and threads plus the writers having to be careful in what they show to us that is dramatized onscreen that a lot of stuff the viewer must fill in.
The series is so densely plotted you could never hope to give the depth to any given thread the way you would on a series with a more modest ensemble and only two or three threads followed and developed over the course of a season. The characters are likeable enough and that is all they need since the majority of the time they are simply a means to facilitate the divulging of exposition or providing the appropriate reactions. Most of the time the depth is left up to the viewer who has to imagine how a character would react or feel because it occurs offscreen or is glossed over because of the urgency to jump to the next subplot. Also the frenzied pacing just doesn't give that time or afford the build up.
Last edited:
